Matt: I loaded the style and demo song and made sure it had a solo track. I then generated the song, listened for about 5 min and then turned the volume down but not all the way so I had some background music playing. I checked the progress every so often and when it got up to chorus 37 I watched it play to the end. I did not have the looping feature on so when the song reached the end of chorus 40, it stopped as expected. Nothing unusual about the playing except the abnormally long duration due to the # of choruses chosen.
The Vary Style In Middle Choruses was on so I would assume it did that also.
Bottom line, everything worked as expected.
BIAB2026 Windows 10 Pro (Never Windows 11!) WA6NCB
This might help to explain why generating a song of that length might take a while or even may not be possible: if you were to unfold a song that has 40 choruses with each chorus containing 255 measures, that'd be approximately 10,200 total bars you'd be asking Band-in-a-Box to play and generate and then render if exporting to an audio file. For best performance, the max number of measures you can have would be 255. You may start to experience issues after that with playback or generation, and potentially in other ways too.
That said, I tried to set it to 255 at 40 choruses just to test it, and it did change to 7 immediately after I tried picking 40. As Band-in-a-Box's max is 255, I'm not surprised that a song created at all these maxes may not work as it's basically being asked to generate over 10k bars. I will ask the developers about expected behaviours when pushing the program, but I don't suspect this is a bug so much as a program limitation, but I'll share what I find out!
So 255 bars is the max of what you can set in the program, but the maximum linear amount of bars you can have including repeats and choruses is 2000. To that end, what you can set Band-in-a-Box to depends on the math. The program cannot do 40 choruses of 255 because it far exceeds that 2000 limit. You could, however, do 40 choruses of 50 bars because this would equal 2000. The program when you enter 255 bars is putting in that limit of 7 because 7 choruses of 255 = 1785 bars. Setting it to 8 choruses of 255 would push it over 2000 by about 40 measures.
This is serious news. I hope you will announce this in several ways, such as a new FAQ, and a Tip and Trick post, changes in the documentation, etc. I am quite sure most (or maybe even none) of us who have used the program for 30 years knew this way of considering the measure limit.
But before you publish the new limit, may I suggest some more experiments might be in order. In particular, test with a RealTrack set to double-time time base.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
This is serious news. I hope you will announce this in several ways, such as a new FAQ, and a Tip and Trick post, changes in the documentation, etc. I am quite sure most (or maybe even none) of us who have used the program for 30 years knew this way of considering the measure limit.
But before you publish the new limit, may I suggest some more experiments might be in order. In particular, test with a RealTrack set to double-time time base.
Excellent points. I was certainly not aware of these specifications, and as we have found in the past, tracks set to double-time base are presumably limited to half this amount again.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Well I just tried style _CORDIAL.STY which I use in the song, After Your Gone. Originally I had 3 RT's and 1 RD in that song using that style and it had 80 measures. That would equate to 720 bars the BIAB has to generate. Works just fine in that setting.
Using the formula, 2000/80 = 25, I could have a maximum of 25 choruses. Well it only let me do 24 but that was good enough for test purposes.
I then made all the tracks 1/2 time and generated the song again. The result was the song generated with 80 measures with 24 choruses and played at 1/2 time. That was what it should have done.
I then did the same the same thing but set the tracks at Double Time and the result blew me away. Instead of generating the song at Double Time, each time I pressed the Generate & Play button, it opens up my File Browser program in my Song Directory and it wants me to load a style!!!!!
Tried it 2-3 times with different songs that I made and the results are the same. It opens up the File Browser asking me to pick a style.
So......
I then used the same style, _CORDIAL.STY but this time loaded the built in demo song and increased the measures to 64, since mathematically I would not have enough choruses to max it out as the demo song only had 32. Anyways, setting the measures to 64 and the choruses to 31, the song generated and appeared to play just fine at normal time BUT each time, I loose the audio, no sound at all but the song moves along as it appears to play.
Since we are in uncharted territory, I am giving it back to the developers since there appears to be multiple bugs in the program when you approach the max number of measures vs choruses in it's current form.
Bugs I see so far:
1. You cannot go above 2000 measures if the choice of measures and choruses goes above that number.
2. Using a song that YOU made mght cause your file browser program to open if you set the tracks to 1/2 time using the maximum number of measure and chorus combinations.
3. Using a style with the built in demo song might cause you to loose audio when you set the tracks to 1/2 time using the maximum number of measure and chorus combinations.
Comments?
BIAB2026 Windows 10 Pro (Never Windows 11!) WA6NCB
This is serious news. I hope you will announce this in several ways, such as a new FAQ, and a Tip and Trick post, changes in the documentation, etc. I am quite sure most (or maybe even none) of us who have used the program for 30 years knew this way of considering the measure limit.
But before you publish the new limit, may I suggest some more experiments might be in order. In particular, test with a RealTrack set to double-time time base.
I can definitely pass this along to the right people for that and see what we can set in motion.
This is good to know and thank you for testing that! I will pass this along as well and make a report for it. Although I will mention that the choruses and bars bit needs to = 2000 total. So if it goes over, it will round down to the nearest possible option. You can see this example with the 7 x 255. While 8 x 255 would have only been over by 40, this wasn't possible because it still exceeded the 2000 limit. So it went down to 7 x 255 because ~1780 was possible while 2040 was not.
Limited to 256 measures TOTAL... I am finding songs to be limited to 256 TOTAL MEASURES no matter what I do, when using 1 big chorus or unfolding 3 choruses, etc.
[BIAB 2023 latest build]. When I attempt to add more measures, it defaults to 256. When I unfold songs, they are cut off at 256 measures. -------------------------------------------------------- Am I understanding the above post incorrectly, or is above stated "2000 measure" limit no longer correct?
Please advise.
Thanks, -Tom
P.S. When I attempt to get what I need using the 'Song Form Maker' the program simply crashes. [I am attempting to create a 3 verse & 3 chorus song (traditionally speaking), but with 4 or 8 bars difference in the 2nd & 3rd verses. I can use BIAB multi-chorus feature, but how to nix the 4 or 8 bars in the 2nd & 3rd verses [i.e. BIAB 2nd & 3rd "Chorus"] using BIAB alone?]
Last edited by tomcadman; 08/20/2302:25 PM.
"Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside of us." - Pcom Pete
Limited to 256 measures TOTAL... I am finding songs to be limited to 256 TOTAL MEASURES no matter what I do, when using 1 big chorus or unfolding 3 choruses, etc.
[BIAB 2023 latest build]. When I attempt to add more measures, it defaults to 256. When I unfold songs, they are cut off at 256 measures. -------------------------------------------------------- Am I understanding the above post incorrectly, or is above stated "2000 measure" limit no longer correct?
Please advise.
Thanks, -Tom
I don't remember this tread from last year, and I don't know what this stuff about 2000 is. 256 is the limit, always has been.
OK, I re-read the entire thread. My conclusion is that this issue was never resolved. So we still don't know what exactly is going on here.
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202 New RealTracks Released with Band-in-a-Box 2026!
With Band-in-a-Box® 2026, we've released 202 incredible new RealTracks (in sets 468-488) in a variety of genres—featuring your most requested styles!
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Our new jazz, funk & blues RealTracks include a groovin’ collection of RealTracks and RealDrums! These include more requested “soul jazz” RealTracks featuring artists Neil Swainson (bass), Charles Treadway (organ), Brent Mason (guitar), and Wes Little (drums). There are new “smooth jazz” styles (4), which include a RealTracks first: muted trumpet, as well as slick new smooth jazz brushes options for drums. Blues lovers will be thrilled—there are more “classic acoustic blues” styles, including guitar (5), bass (4), and drums (10) with blues master Colin Linden, featuring understated and tasty background acoustic soloing, plus brushes drums and acoustic bass. There are also new electric blues RealTracks, including electric blues with PG favorite Johnny Hiland (3) and soulful electric slide guitar from Colin Linden (4). If you love funk & gospel, there are great new options this year, including gospel organ (3) from Charles Treadway, as well as new funk, tango, and rock ’n’ roll drums (3) and bass (1). And for big, bold arrangements, we have uptempo soul horns (4) featuring a three-part hip horn section with options for a full mix or stems of each individual horn — plus an accompanying rhythm section (4) of drums, bass, guitar, and electric piano!
Rock & Pop (Sets 476–482):
Our new rock & pop RealTracks bring a powerful mix of requested favorites, fresh genres, and modern chart-inspired styles! We have more of our popular “Producer Layered Acoustic Guitars (15)” featuring Band-in-a-Box favorite Brent Mason. We’ve continued our much-requested disco styles (10), and added new Celtic guitar (5) with a more basic, accessible approach than our previous Drop-D or DADGAD offerings. There are also highly requested yacht rock styles (17), inspired by the smooth, polished soft-rock sound of the late ’70s and early ’80s — laid-back grooves, silky electric pianos, warm textures, elegant harmonic movement, and pristine production aesthetics. Fans of heavier styles will love our new glam metal (13), capturing the flashy, high-energy sound of ’80s arena-ready guitar rock. We also have a set of rootsy modern-folk rock (18), with a warm, organic sound combining contemporary folk textures and driving acoustic strumming. And we’ve added lots of new modern pop styles (16) — the kinds of sounds you’re hearing on the radio today, featuring exciting new drums, synths, and cutting-edge RealTracks arrangements.
Country, & Americana (Sets 483–488):
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
iOS Android Band-in-a-Box® App
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20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
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